Shadow Walker
by garbygal
Summary: Who is Shadow Walker?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Seymour Birkhoff sat at a lunch table, watching the other kids of his school excitedly talking and eating their lunches. He sat alone at a table in the corner of the room. It wasn't uncommon for some reason Seymour just did not quite fit in. It had always been that way since he had started sixth grade. While all the other kids were making friends and social groups, Seymour was too awkward. He was far smarter than them- he just seemed to understand everything- and they didn't like him showing them up.

Lunch was excruciating for Seymour. He wanted to have friends, but he couldn't quite figure out the social skills side of things. He walked to class after lunch and took his seat as the other kids came into class. Seymour was somewhat excited as he typically was for his science class. Once the bell rang, Seymour excitedly listened as the teacher started the lesson. He only got a few minutes into the class before the classroom phone began to ring. As the teacher talked the kids began to talk amongst themselves, whispering about what could possibly cause the teacher to get a call in the middle of class. After a couple of minutes the teacher hung up and slowly walked back through the class, stopping next to Seymour's desk. Seymour didn't even look up- he was embarrassed enough already. "Mr. Birkhoff." the teacher addressed him, "You are wanted in the principal's office."

All the other kids laughed and pointed as Seymour walked out of the room after packing up this backpack. He swung the backpack over his shoulder; he had never been more embarrassed in his life. He had enough problems with his classmates and this definitely wasn't going to help anything. Trudging slowly down the hall, he flashed his hall pas to the monitor. Finally he opened the door to the office and went up to the secretary. "Seymour Birkhoff" she asked him.

Seymour nodded. "Yes." He replied, rolling his eyes.

"Have a seat. I'll tell Principal McMillan that you are here." The secretary gave him a smile.

Seymour couldn't figure out what was going on. Normally the secretaries were so crabby to the students, like they were perpetually annoying them, but today they were smiling and talking gently to him. Even an idiot could tell something was very wrong. When his eyes caught a police car pulled up outside the school, his heart began to pound. "Mr. Birkhoff." Principal McMillan came out of his office and greeted the young man. "C'mon in."

Following the principal into his office, Seymour was surprised to see Judy Walker, one of the school's social worker waiting in the office. "Seymour." She greeted him with a nod.

"Have a seat." Principal McMillan gestured to the seat.

Seymour sat down and Principal sat down behind his desk. Everyone was silent for a minute or two before Principal McMillan asked "So how are things going for you Seymour?"

Birkhoff shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Okay I guess." He replied.

"Getting along with your classmates" Ms. Waller questioned.

"I guess so." Birkhoff was slightly irritated to be in the principal's office.

A knock at the door startled them. "Come in." Principal McMillan calmly replied.

When police officers knocked on the door and then walked in, Seymour's heart began to pound. When the police were involved it was never good. "Principal McMillan, Ms. Baker, you must be Mr. Birkhoff."

Seymour nodded. "That's me." He replied.

"Mr. Birkhoff," the policeman's tone caused a shiver to run down his spine. "I'm here because there was an accident this afternoon."

Seymour's heart began to pound. "What?" he asked.

"Earlier this morning your parents were traveling east when they were t-boned by another car. The force of the accident forced their car down an embankment into the river. When we removed the car from the river, there were no survivors. I'm really sorry son." The second officer explained.

Frozen, Seymour couldn't move. He couldn't speak. He was completely in shock; Seymour was an only child of two only children. His parents were all they had. "Seymour are you okay?" Ms. Waller asked.

Seymour still did not answer. His normally excellent mind was having trouble processing the fact that his family was dead. Wanting to respond to them, Seymour just couldn't bring himself to say it. "I'm really sorry Seymour." The principal told him.

Wetness on his cheeks surprised him. "What will happen to me?" he finally managed to ask.

"Do you have any family?" the officer asked.

Seymour just shook his head. "No. My parents were both only children, I'm an only child and my grandparents are dead." He answered.

"We will have to work that out." Ms. Waller told him, "Do you have any friends you could stay with?"

Again Seymour shook his head. "We will have to contact DCFS to determine where we can get you somewhere to stay." Officer Wipinski (the first officer whose name he read from the name badge) replied.

"I'll take you to an intake center to try to get you settled." Ms. Weller offered.

That evening Seymour found himself settled in a room with three other kids. Scotty was 15, Micah was 17 and Sam was 16. None of them paid much attention to Seymour. They had all been in foster care long enough to have a pretty aggressive, anti-establishment mentality that did not match well with Birkhoff's limited social skills.

Briefly as Seymour had been processed into the system he met Ms. Granger, the DCFS social worker that was assigned to his case. Since Seymour was the only family she helped him set up funeral arrangements for his parents for a couple days from then.

Now that he was alone in the room, his roommates watching TV, Seymour had a chance to think about everything. He thought back to that morning when he and his parents were eating breakfast. At the time he had been rude to his parents- he was becoming a teenager after all. Now he really regretted having trouble accepting he was truly alone- he was the only person in his family alive.

The next morning when he woke up, Seymour couldn't bring himself to get out of bed. In reality, he didn't have much to look forward to. With a groan he stretched out pulling the blankets up tight against his neck. The bed was warm and safe unlike the cruel world that had taken his parents from him. A knock on the door surprised him- his roommates were already gone to school. "Seymour." He recognized the social worker's voice.

Jumping down from his top bunk, Seymour ran a hand through his hair to straighten the mess it had made in sleep. Opening the door, he recognized the social worker waiting for him. "Yeah?" he asked her.

"I just came to see how you were doing." She replied.

"Alright." Seymour answered, walking into his room.

"Do you have any questions for me? Anything you would like me to get for you?" the social worker asked, following Seymour into the room.

"Nothing I need." Seymour replied "But I would like to know what's going to happen to me now." He sat on the bunk below his.

"Well it depends." She replied sitting on the other bunk across from him. "We will put you up for foster placement and adoption."

"So what if no one wants me?" Seymour wanted to figure out what might happen. "Let's be honest- I'm a 12-year-old boy with anti-social tendencies. Who will want me?"

The social worker gave him and smile and squeezed his shoulder. "Don't worry Seymour, we'll get it all figured out."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

It had been only two days since his parents were killed and Seymour was still completely lost. He had not been able to figure out just what to do with himself. Today was the day of the funeral and the first day of his life completely without family. After the funeral he would be eligible for a foster family, he would go back to school- and this would be his last day ever with the only family he had.

He pulled the tie of his suit tight against his throat. This was the one occasion they would get him to wear a suit. For his family he would wear a suit- but nothing else. Checking his reflection in the mirror, he was not too satisfied with the look, but he knew he had to be the good son. As he continued to watch himself in the mirror, he heard the door open as his three roommates came in. "Well what do we have here?" Scotty laughed.

"Little boy in a suit." Micah laughed.

"Don't you look so cute?" Sam added.

"Leave me alone." Birkhoff replied, "I'm going to my mother's funeral."

"Aww." Micah taunted. "Little boy gotta say bye to mommy and daddy."

"Just shut up." Birkhoff replied.

"Did you hear something?" the three older boys started to circle Seymour. "I think there "I think there is a little boy that thinks he can tell us what to do."

"So what do we do?" Scott asked in reply.

Before Seymour could figure out what the response as going to be, he was lifted by both arms and dragged into their bathroom. The bigger kids were no match for Seymour and he was upside down with just enough time to hold his breath before his head was dunked into the flushing toilet. When they lifted him up Seymour though he would get a reprieve, but it was short lived when he was dunked into the toilet again. This happened twice more before the older boys, bolted, hearing the head woman calling for Seymour.

When the guys had left, Seymour lifted himself up. His suit was water-logged and luckily his short hair didn't show much sign of the water. Using his towel Birkhoff tried as best he could to clean himself up then walked downstairs where the social worker was waiting. When she saw Seymour, she just shook her head. When he got to her, she roughly fixed his collar and replied, "You cannot let those older boys ick on you"

Seymour didn't reply, just hung his head. He had enough rejection from the kids at school- he just didn't have any fight left in him. Especially not today. "Sure." He quietly replied.

"Well, let's go. Services start soon." Meghan, the social worker told him.

They walked out to the car and Meghan drove him to the church. The whole way Birkhoff just watched out the window as the trees went by. Meghan was concerned how quiet he was, but he did have a lot he was dealing with. When they got to the church, Seymour climbed out of the car and she headed in a couple steps behind him. When they entered the church, there was no one there. Meghan was surprised that Seymour and his family didn't have any friends or anyone to stop by.

Just a few hours they sat at the viewing and no one showed up. Meghan watched as Seymour sat in agony- missing his parents- having no one familiar to comfort him and having gotten beaten up by his roommates. The young man was lost and no one knew what to do for him. As much as she regretted it, she knew he would probably just get lost in the shuffle- just like most foster kids did. Her thoughts were interrupted as the Pastor came in. "Is this the Birkhoffs?" he asked as they watched Seymour at the front of the church.

Meghan nodded. "That's Seymour, their son."

With a nod, the pastor headed up towards Seymour. The boy was still sitting quietly, almost in a trans-like stare watching his parents' coffins. "Hey young man." The pastor greeted Seymour, sitting beside him. The boy still said nothing. "Hey young man, I know it's hard, but we'll get you through this."

Seymour turned his head and glared at the pastor. "You're not going to help me do anything. They're going to put me in the system and hope that someone wants a twelve-year-old, anti-social boy. If they don't I'm stuck in foster care getting beat up. After today you'll never see me again."

"Son you will always be able to come talk to me." The pastor replied.

Seymour just looked away. He was no idiot; he knew neither that pastor nor the social worker Meghan would care about him once he was past this- a week or a month from now. Finally the pastor got up to do the ceremony. They spent an hour saying goodbye to his parents- Seymour even going up to the coffins to say goodbye. It was there when Seymour finally began to cry- when he realized his life was really going to be the disaster he had spent the last two days fearing.

It was a blur as they buried his parents. Before he knew it they were back at the foster facility. He was silent, in shock, he had no idea what to do or say. When Meghan and he arrived back at the foster facility, Seymour just headed silently to the room. On his way up the stairs, a young woman, probably about 16 walked by him. "Hey, I'm Noel!" she cheerfully greeted him.

"Seymour." He quietly replied.

"What happened?" the young girl could tell something was wrong.

"My parents were killed. Just had their funeral."

Noel frowned at the news. "I'm really sorry to hear that."

Looking up at her, Seymour replied, "You're the first person to say you're truly sorry."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Noel still frowned. "Listen, I was off to work on something- by chance do you like computers?"

Seymour shook his head. "Haven't been around them a whole lot." He replied.

"C'mon. I'll show you how to have some fun." Noel continued down the stairs, Seymour turning to follow her.

Noel headed into the computer lab, Seymour following behind. "Do you know what hacking is?"

Seymour shook his head. "It sound sort of familiar, but it's nothing that I've seen.'

"Have a seat." Noel patted the seat beside her where Seymour sat down. "Hacking is breaking into someone or a company's computer system."

"Isn't that illegal?" Seymour worried it was an ignorant question.

"Only if you get caught." Noel replied.

"So why do you hack?" Seymour had some guesses, but knew it would be better to hear from the expert.

"You can see people's security systems, transfer people's money around, almost anything they do on the Internet." Noel was punching things up on the computer screen faster than Seymour could keep track of what she was doing.

The next few days started to get a little better for Seymour. He went to school, but it was easier to get through the day knowing he would see Noel and work on hacking. It was still a little difficult to get used to getting picked on, but his growth in hacking gave him a little confidence. Unfortunately things on the fostering front weren't going as well.

It had been a week since Seymour had lost his parents. He and Noel were on the computers working when Meghan came in looking for him. "Hey Seymour, can we talk?" she asked.

Closing the computer programs, Seymour followed Meghan to her office. She sat down at the desk, Seymour across from her. "So Seymour, how are things going for you?" Meghan asked.

"Okay." Seymour replied.

"I'm glad to hear it." Meghan replied, "We have been working to try to find a foster parent or family for you."

"How is that going?" Seymour asked, concerned about what she may say.

"Well," her tone instantly alarmed Seymour. "Not too good, unfortunately there are quite  
a few foster kids in the system and there aren't too many that are looking for an older boy."

"In other words I'm here?" Seymour questioned.

"For now, yes." Meghan replied.

Seymour wasn't exactly sure if it was good or bad. He was having a good time learning from Noel, but was very annoyed at getting picket on by the other foster kids and at school. Losing his parents along with all of this and he was completely unsure how to feel. Sensing Seymour's silence and how unsure he was, Meghan spoke up again, "I will let you know when I hear anything. Just let me know if you have any questions or you need to talk to anyone.

Seymour nodded. "Anything else he asked.

"No. I'll let you know if I hear anything." Meghan smiled. "Keep your chin up Seymour. We'll get you sorted out."

Heading out of the office, Seymour had to sigh when he ran almost directly into Michael, Sam and Scotty. "Hey!" Micah immediately taunted, "Look what we have here, it's Noel's boyfriend."

"I'm not her boyfriend." Seymour replied, trying to push his way past them.

Scotty and Micah stood side-by-side and knocked Seymour right back to the ground. "You sure spend a lot of time with her." Scotty taunted him.

"She's teaching me computers." Seymour tried to get up, only for Sam to force him back to the ground, Seymour's back crashing hard into the floor.

"What a pussy." Micah groaned, as the gang walked away.

Collecting himself off the floor, Seymour wasn't sure how much more of this he would be able to take."


End file.
